It is “ludicrous” for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to call on Malaysians to aspire for high moral values so that the world would respect Malaysia, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

Making reference to the 1MDB scandal, Mahathir accused Najib of not showing leadership by example, and believing instead that “cash is king”.

“…Najib’s call to Malaysians to achieve high moral values and culture and for the world to respect Malaysia is ludicrous,” he said in his blog post published this morning.

“Currently Malaysia’s name is mud to the world. Malaysians are ashamed to admit they are Malaysians when abroad. Such is the reputation of Malaysia caused by Najib’s 1MDB losing billions of ringgit, money laundering and the billions found in his banking account.

“Worse still is the fact that he is still the prime minister of Malaysia. In Brazil and South Korea, mere suspicion of corruption has resulted in suspension and arrest.

“But in Malaysia, Najib is safe and is brazenly telling Malaysians to be honest, and demanding the world to respect this corrupt country.”

Najib has repeatedly denied wrongdoing over the 1MDB scandal, and attorney-general Mohd Apandi Ali also exonerated him last year.

Mahathir’s blog post was apparently in response to Najib’s speech last Saturday, at the Cultural Congress 2017 at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Najib had reportedly said that Malaysia’s 2050 Transformation Plan would not succeed without strong moral and cultural values among its citizens, The Star quoted him as saying.

Without naming names, Najib also said respect for the elderly should be cultivated, but the old should not talk too much. This remark was taken by some as a reference to 91-year-old Mahathir, and it elicited laughter from the audience.

In his blog, Mahathir said although Najib does not believe in leadership by example, his subordinates were looking to him as a model to follow.

“Najib is not an example of a person of high moral values. In the first place, he believes that cash is king. This simply means that people can be corrupted to make them do anything; to vote for BN in the next election for example.

“As a result, Malaysia has been classified as one of the 10 most corrupt countries in the world. Do people respect a highly corrupt country?

“And the money for corruption will come largely from stolen 1MDB money. Incidentally, there seems to have been no audit of 1MDB money over the last two years. Is this something which will make the world respect us?

“Now we hear reports of senior civil servants having hundreds of millions of ringgit, which had obviously been acquired corruptly.

“Far from achieving higher moral values, it seems the values have deteriorated under Najib. Morality and culture are going from bad to worse.

“Merely introducing a new slogan about transformation in 33 years is not going to spin Malaysians around to possess high cultural and moral values,” Mahathir said. – Malaysiakini